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Glass, J,. £ ^^5 1 



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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 

^/'^ BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 
WASHINGTON. 



THE MTIOMl RURAL TEACHERS' READING CIRCLE. 

Purpose. — The greatness and future of the American Nation will 
depend in large measure on the degree of prosperity in its rural 
communities. The 60,000,000 men, women, and children who live 
in the open country and in rural villages and small towns must have 
more adequate opportunity for wholesome and remunerative living 
than heretofore. The work of the farm is to be made more intelli- 
gent and rural life more attractive. Nature and art are to be united 
in bringing to the American farmer and his family all that is sweet- 
est and sanest and strongest and best in human culture. This calls 
for a new leadership which can come to rural communities only 
through the highest degree of education of a cultural and pi:actical 
kind. Much of this must come about by the cooperation of Nation, 
State, and local community through all the different agencies now 
available, but the most important and most indispensable agent in 
the accomplishment of this task must be the rural teacher. More 
depends upon the rural teacher than on all other agencies. The im- 
provement of rural life, as of urban life, is one of education. 

The vital factor in education is the teacher. Without the well- 
educated, broad-minded, sympathetic teacher, any system of educa- 
tion can only be a lifeless mechanism. The rural teacher means more 
for rural education and rural life than the city teacher can mean for 
urban education and urban life. Therefore we must look to the 
country teachers and their preparation, and see to it that they shall 
be men and women of the best native ability, the most thorough edu- 
cation, and the highest degree of professional knowledge and skill. 
This will come to pass if a general understanding of the needs will 
create the demand, and secondary schools, colleges, and normal 
schools will redouble their efforts to meet the demand. 

In the meantime, there is great need for a few leaders among the 
teachers in every county — men and women who, through their na- 
tive ability and persistent study, have risen above the humdrum 
routine of the daily school tasks performed in a more or less per- 

25272° — 16 



2 NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS^ READING CIRCLE. 

functory way ; men and women who have read broadly and thought 
deeply on the problems of life and citizenship, upon the scientific 
principles involved in farming, and upon the principles of education 
and their application to the conditions and needs of American rural 
schools. 

It is to assist in finding and equipping such leaders that the 
United States Bureau of Education, with the assistance of a com- 
mittee of the Association of State Superintendents, has arranged the 
First Eural Teachers' Reading Circle, open to the teachers of every 
State under the rules and regulations set forth hereinafter. 

8tefs in organization. — The first steps in the organization of the 
National Eural Teachers' Reading Circle were taken at the meeting 
of the National Education Association at St. Paul in the summer of 
1914. The plan of organization was outlined in detail at a meeting 
of the Association of State Superintendents and generally ratified. 
Steps were taken at that time to appoint an advisory committee of 
State superintendents to cooperate with the Bureau of Education 
in formulating the plans for the course. Because of great stress of 
work, the final plans have just been completed and are now ready to 
be put into operation with the opening of the new school year. 

Cooperation with State departments of public instruction. — This 
course is intended only for teachers who are in earnest and who are 
willing, by continuous study and unusual effort, to pay the price of 
recognized leadership and of a consciousness of work well done. It 
will not interfere with the teachers' reading circles as now organized 
and doing good work in many States. The purpose is rather to 
supplement these as a kind of graduate course. 

The work is to be offered through cooperation with State depart- 
ments of education. Teachers will be enrolled from the States whose 
authorities express their desire for such cooperation, and from these 
alone. 

The advisory committee, appointed through the Association of 
State Superintendents, is constituted as follows: 

Hon. John H. Finley, commissioner of education, Albany, N. Y. 

Hon. Nathan O. SchaefEer, superintendent of public instruction, Harris- 
burg, Pa. 

Hon. Charles A. Greathouse, State superintendent of public instruction, In- 
dianapolis, Ind. 

Hon. Josephine Preston, State superintendent of public instruction, Olym- 
pia, Wash. 

Hon. George B. Cook, State superintendent of public instruction, Little Rock, 
Ark. 

Membership. — It is not expected that this will be large, perhaps 
only a few in a county. It is desirable that teachers who apply for 
admission to membership should have a liberal acquaintance with the 

D.- 'Dlf D. 
MAR i? 1916 



]SrATIO]SrAL RURAL TEACHERS READING CIRCLE. 3 

best literary works. None will, however, be excluded from mem- 
bership on account of limited reading, since the main purpose of the 
reading circle is to remedy this defect. 

Teachers may enroll at any time after September 1, 1915, and pur- 
sue the work as rapidly as they wish. It is not mandatory to organ- 
ize local circles, although it is quite desirable for a group of three or 
more to form a local organization for mutual assistance and encour- 
agement. The work is intended for mature teachers, who know how 
to study alone. The best results are probably attained by the indi- 
vidual teacher in silent, thoughtful reading in his own home. 

Tlie study course for the years 1916-1917. — The books in the course 
are classified under five heads : 

I. Nonprofessional books of culture value ; 
II. Educational classics ; 

III. General principles and methods of education ; 

IV. Rural education ; and 
V. Rural life iDroblems. 

Ten of the first kind are listed and five each of the others. The 
lists of books have been selected only after much correspondence with 
several hundred educators who were requested to make lists of their 
selection. The choice for the first two-year course has fallen to the 
books enumerated below. 

Requirements for completion of course. — The work is intended as 
a two-year reading course, although it may be completed in a shorter 
time. To those who give satisfactory evidence of having read in- 
telligently not less than 5 books from the general culture list and 3 
books from each of the other four lists — 17 books in all — within two 
years from the time of registering will be awarded a National Eural 
Teachers' Reading Circle Certificate signed by the United States 
Commissioner of Education and the chief school official of the State 
in which the reader lives at the time when the course is completed. 

List of hoohs. — The following are the books selected for the two- 
year period 1915-1917, together with publishers' addresses and retail 
prices. The Bureau of Education does not lend books, nor can it 
place orders for them. Books may be purchased from local book- 
stores or from the publishers : 

Title. Publisher -P™* (carriage 

^"''"*'*"- prepaid). 

I. General Literature (10 authors).^ 

Emerson'a Essays. . . /Houghton, Cambridge Classics |0. 90 

LDutton, Everyman's Library 35 

'Translated by Bayard Taylor, Houghton 2. 50 

Translated by A. G. Latham. Button, Everyman's 

Goethe's Faust I Library, 2 vols each . . .35 

Translated by Anna Swanwick. Burt, Home 
Library 1. 00 

1 Other editions may be substituted, as these are suggestive only. 



4 NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS ' BEADING CIRCLE. 

TitU. Publislier. Price (carriage 

prepaid) . 
L Cfeneral Literature (10 authors) — Continued. 

Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood. Orowell, 2 

vols each. . $1. 25 

Also in one volume 1. 25 

Translated by 0. E. Wilboui-. Button, Everyman's 

Library, 2 vols each. . . 35 

fHougbton, Cambridge Classics 90 

Crowell, Astor Library 60 



Hugo's Les Miserables 



f 

Hawthorne's Scarlet! 

'^^^^^^- [Burt, Home Library LOO 

Translated by W. C. Bryant. Houghton 1. 00 

Translated by Lord Derby. Button, Everyman's 

Homer's lUad < Library 35 

Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers. Macmillan. . 80 

Globe edition 1.75 

Ruskin's Sesame and] 

Lilies, Two Paths, I Button, Everyman's Library 35 

King of the Golden [Longmans 1. 50 

River. J 

, fAmerican Book Co. (Rolfe) for Individual Plays. . . .56 

bhakespeare s Dramas I j)^^^q^^ Temple Ed. for Individual Plays 35 

^^^- [Ginn & Co. (Hudson) 30 

_, , , -rr •. fCrowell, Astor Library 60 

f2 ^^^y Burt, Home Library LOO 

iDutton, Everyman's Library 35 

{Translated by Conington. Longmans 1.25 
Translated by T. C. Williams. Houghton 1. 50 
Translated by E. F. Taylor. Dutton, Everyman's 
Library 35 

Van Dyke's Blue Flower, Scribner 1. 50 

(Select any five from above list.) 

JI. Educational Classics (5 authors).^ 

Froebel's Education of Man Appleton •. . $1. 50 

Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude Heath 90 

Plato's Republic Button 1. 25 

Rousseau's Emile Heath 90 

Spencer's Essays on Education Button 35 

(Select any three from above list.) 

III. General Prindfles and Methods of Education (5 authors). 

Bewey's Moral Principles in Education Houghton $0. 35 

Curtifl's Education Through Play Macmillan 1. 25 

King's Education for Social Efficiency Appleton 1, 50 

Thomdike's Principles of Teaching A. G. Seller, N. Y 1. 25 

White's School Management American Book Co 1. 00 

(Select any three from above list.) 

TV. Rural Education (5 authors). 

Carney's Country Life and the Country School. .Rowe, Peterson $1. 25 

Cubberly's Rural Life and Rural Education .... Houghton 1. 50 

Eggleston and Bru^re's The Work of the 

Rural School Harper 1. 00 

1 Other editions may be substituted, as these are suggestive ony. 



NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS READING CIRCLE. 5 

^'"'- Publisher. -P"<=« (carriage 

prepaid). 

IV. Rural Education (5 authors) — Continued. 

Foght's The American Rural School Macmillan $1. 25 

Hart's Educational Resources of Village and 
Rural Communities Macmillan 1. 25 

(Select any three from above list.) 

V. Rural Life Problems (5 authors). 

Bailey's The Country Life Movement Macmillan $1. 25 

Carver's Principles in Rui'al Economics Ginn 1. 50 

Foght's Rural Denmai'k and its Schools Macmillan 1. 40 

Gillette's Constructive Rural Sociology Sturgis, Walton Co., N. Y. 1. 60 

Wilson's Evolution of a Country Community Pilgrim Press 1. 25 

(Select any three from above list.) 

Addresses of publishers. 

Houghton, Mifflin Co., 4 Park Street, Boston. 

E. P. Button & Co., New York. 

A. L. Burt & Co., 52-58 Duane Street, New York. 

Thos. Y. Crowell Co., 426-428 West Broadway, New York, 

The Macmillan Co., 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York. 

Longmans, Green & Co., 443-449 Fourth Avenue, New York. 

American Book Co., New York. 

Ginn & Co., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York. 

D. Appleton & Co., 35 West Thirty-second Street, New YotK 

D. C. Heath & Co., New York. 

A. G. Seller, New York. 

Row, Peterson Co., 632 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 

Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, New York. 

Sturgis Walton Co., New York. 

Pilgrim Press, Boston. 

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 

BRIEF EESUM:g;S OP BOOKS TO BE READ. 

/. General Literature: 

.Emerson's Essays.— The eamons offered include History, Self-Reliance, 
Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over- 
soul, Circles, Intellect, Art, The Poet, Experience, Character, Manners, Gifts, 
Nature, Politics, Nominalist and Realist, New England Reformers, etc. These 
give the best of the essayist's work, and throw a clear light on the essential 
quality of the writer's mind. 

Goethe's Faust.— Goethe has been called "The poet of the universe," and 
his Faust the greatest and most comprehensive of all dramatic poems. Taking 
the mediaeval legend of Dr. Faustus, the philosopher and magician, which had 
appealed to so many poets, Goethe has transformed and expanded it into the 
framework of this drama of the developing soul of the individual and of the 
spirit of world progress. In the legend Faust signs in blood a bond to the effect 
that if Mephistopheles will serve him faithfully for a period of 24 years he 
may then have his soul, and the terms of the bond are fulfilled. In the drama 
the service of Mephistopheles is to end and he is to take possession of Faust's 
soul when he shall cause him to say to the moment, " Stay, thou art fair." 
Through the years of long life Mephistopheles conducts Faust through the 
varied scenes of the little world of the home and domestic society, and through 
the larger world of state and public affairs, until he has experienced something 
of the full round of human life. When old and blind he receives from the 
Emperor, as a reward for his services, permission to reclaim the marsh lands 



6 NATIONAL RUEAL TEACHERS^ READING CIRCLE. 

of the seacoast and colonize them with people who, in security, shall earn and 
ennoble their daily lives by their daily toil. Only when this task is partly ac- 
complished, and with his spiritual eyes he sees the people living in peace and 
rejoicing in their work, is Faust satisfied. Then he says to the moment, " Stay, 
thou art fair," and dies. Mephistopheles claims his bond and assembles the-' 
host of his underlings to capture and carry away Faust's soul, but from above 
angels and archangels drive away the devils and bear" the soul of Faust through 
the ranks of acclaiming saints and martyrs and holy women to the world 
above. So long as man strives, so long must he err ; but a good man, through 
all his wanderings, has still an instinct of that which is true and right. The 
creative, productive, and aspiring forces of life, the feminine force of love and 
faith, draw us upward and on. Goethe began this drama in his early manhood 
and finished it, after a period of 60 years, in old age. This gave him an oppor- 
tunity to fill it with his own experiences and their results in a way and to an 
extent unique in the history of literature. Those who read Faust at all should 
read both parts. Without this no true conception of the drama and its mean- 
ing can be had. 

Htigo's Les Miserahles. — Ever since Les Miserables first appeared simultane- 
ously in nine languages in 1862, it has been accepted as one of the undoubted 
masterpieces of the world's fiction. Originally written in French, the genius 
of its author has made it peculiar to every time and people. Hugo's theme is 
the downtrodden, " the wretched ones " of society. The ' central figure, Jean 
Valjean, is an escaped convict who is set on the right road by a good bishop, 
and who thereafter devotes his life to repaying society with good for evil of 
his former life. Other leading characters are Fantine, the grisette whom 
he rescues, Cosette, the waif, the vicious Thenardiers, and Javert, the grim 
detective. Les Miserables is a novel M'^ith a purpose. The author is fired 
with a desire to uplift the lower stratum of society, to make one-half of the 
world know how the other half lives, but the art of the novelist outshines 
the text of the reformer. 

HawtJwrne's Scarlet Letter. — The best-known of Hawthorne's novels. This 
novel has been universally recognized as one of the most sincere and telling 
characterizations -of the Puritan time and Puritan people ever written. Its 
style, its psychology, and its singleness of purpose, to which all of the threads 
of the story are subordinated, are alike worthy of careful study. 

Homer's Iliad. — This great epic sings the wrath of Achilles, Peleus's son, and 
covers the last year of the siege of Troy. It is written in 24 sections or books. 
Menelaus, King of Sparta, received as a guest, Paris, the son of Priam, King 
of Troy. Paris eloped with Helen, his host's wife, and Menelaus induced the 
Greeks to lay siege to Troy to avenge the perfidy. The siege lasted 10 years, 
when Troy was taken and burned to the ground. 

Buskin's Sesame and Lilies. — This book contains lectures on books and their 
uses, the place of woman in modern society, and the arts of life. Some ideals 
of life are clearly and forcefully presented. The book is the most widely read 
of Ruskin's writings on social life. 

Shakespeare. — Any five of the following dramas may be chosen : Hamlet, 
King Lear, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's 
Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, 
and Much Ado About Nothing. 

Hamlet. — No play of Shakespeare's has had a higher power of interesting 
spectators and readers than Hamlet, and none has given rise to a greater 
variety of conflicting interpretations. It has been rightly named a tragedy of 



NATIONAL EUKAt TEACHERS^ READING CIRCLE. 7 

thought, and in this respect, as well as others, takes its place beside Juliiis 
Caesar., 

Hamlet, naturally sensitive, receives a painful shock from the hasty second 
marriage of his mother ; then follows the terrible discovery of his father's 
murder, with the injunction laid upon Mm to revenge the crime; upon this 
again follow the repulses which he receives from Ophelia. A deep melan- 
choly "lays hold of his spirit and all of life grows dark and sad to his vision. 
Although hating his father's murderer, he has little heart to push on his 
reveng«. He is aware that he is suspected and surrounded by spies. Partly 
to baflBe them, he assumes the p^rt of one whose wits have gone astray. 
Except for one loyal friend, he is alone among enemies or supposed traitors. 
The king, recognizing his foe in Hamlet, does not delay to dispatch him to a 
bloody death in England. But there is in Hamlet a terrible power of sudden 
an'd desperate action. From the melancholy which broods over him after the 
burial of Ophelia, he rouses himself to the play of swords with Laertes, and 
at the last, with strength which leaps up before its final extinction, he accom- 
plishes the punishment of the malefactor. 

King Lear is the greatest sufferer in Shakespeare's plays. The elements 
seem to have conspired against him with his unnatural daughters, Goneril and 
Regan; the upheaval of the moral world and the range of tempest in the air 
seem to be parts of the same gigantic convulsion. In the midst of this tempest 
wanders, unhoused, the white-haired Cear; while his fool jests half -wildly, 
half-coherently, half-bitterly, half-tenderly, and always with a sad remem- 
brance of the happier past. Nothing in poetry is bolder or more wonderful 
than this scene. 

Edgar and Edmund, the sons of Gloster, are a contrasted pair ; both are men 
of penetration, energy, and skill — one on the side of evil, the other on the side 
of good. Edgar's virtue is active, enduring, and full of device ; he rises at last 
to be the justiciary who brings his evil brother sternly to punishment. 

Cordelia dies strangled in prison ; yet we know that her devotion of love 
to her father was not misspent. Lear expires in an agony of grief ; he has 
found that instead of being a master, at whose nod all things must bow, he is 
weak and helpless, a sport even of the wind and the rain. 

Julius Caesar is one of the most perfect of Shakespeare' plays ; greater 
tragedies are less perfect, perhaps for the very reason that they try to grasp 
greater, more terrible, or more piteous themes. 

Intellectual doctrines and moral ideals rule the life of Brutus, and his life is 
most noble, high, and stainless, but his public action is a series of practical mis- 
takes. All the practical gifts, insight, and tact which Brutus lacks are pos- 
sessed by Cassius. 

Antony is a man of genius, with many splendid and some generous qualities, 
but self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, and a daring adventurer. 

The character of Caesar is conceived in a curious and almost irritating man- 
ner. Shakespeare was certainly not ignorant of the greatness of one of the 
world's greatest men. But here it is his weaknesses that are insisted on. He 
is failing in body and mind, influenced by superstition, yields to flattery, thinks 
of himself as almost superhuman, has lost some of his insight into character, 
and his sureness and swiftness of action. Yet the play is rightly named Julius 
Caesar. His bodily presence is weak, but his spirit rules throughout the play, 
and rises after his death in its might, towering over the little band of con- 
spirators, who at length fall before the spirit of Caesar as it rages for revenge. 

Romeo and Juliet, apart from its intrinsic beauty, is of deep interest when 
viewed as Shakespeare's first tragedy. It is a young man's tragedy, in which 
Youth and Love are brought face to face with Hatred and Death. 



8 NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS READING CIRCLE. 

To Juliet, a girl of 14, love comes as a thing previously unknown; it is at 
once terrible and blissful ; she rises, through love and sorrow and trial, from a 
child into a heroic woman. 

The action is accelerated by Shakespeare to the utmost : On Sunday the lovers 
meet ; next day they are made one in marriage ; on Tuesday morning at dawn 
they part, and they are finally reunited in the tomb on the night of Thursday. 
The tragedy does not close with Juliet's death. In the first scene is shown the 
hatred of the houses through the comic quarrel of the servants, while in the 
last scene are shown the houses sorrowfully reconciled over the dead bodies of 
a son and a daughter. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a strange and beautiful web of entangle- 
ments and cross-purposes, woven delicately by a youthful poet's fancy. What is 
perhaps most remarkable about the play is the harmonious blending in it of 
widely different elements. The marriage of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta sur- 
rounds the whole, as it were, with a magnificent frame. Theseus is Shake- 
speare's early ideal of a heroic warrior and man of action. His life is one of 
splendid achievement and of joy ; his love is a kind of happy victory, his mar- 
riage a triumph. 

The Merchant of Venice. — Although the play is named after the merchant, 
Antonio, he is not the chief dramatic person ; he forms, however, a center around 
which the other characters are grouped : Bassanio, his friend ; Shylock, his 
enemy and would-be murderer ; Portia, his savior. 

When Antonio first appears, he is oppressed with the sadness of having to 
render up his friend Bassanio to one who must henceforth take the chief place 
in his heart. The merchant questions him about the lady ; and Bassanio, fear- 
ing to pain his friend, dwells little on his love for Portia and much on the 
motives of prudence which make his marriage with a rich heiress desirable. It 
is the same Portia who had seemed to deprive Antonio of his friendship, who 
afterwards, in the trial scene, when Shylock stands firm upon his foothold of 
the law and demands his " pound of flesh," gives him back not only friendship 
but life itself; and in the last act the lovers and their friend are united in a 
common joy. 

Thackeray's Vanity Fair. — In Vanity Fair, Thackeray has produced a definite 
picture of English society at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is a 
*' novel without a hero," as the author states, but this lack is more than com- 
pensated in the heroine, Becky Sharp. This clever adventuress is the proto- 
type of the social climber who stops short at no means to attain her ends. 
Contrasted with her is the weak and amiable Amelia, the schoolmate whom 
she uses as her first stepping-stone ; and around them cluster many types of 
social life — all drawn clearly and remorselessly by the satirical pen of Thack- 
eray. In his ability to see under the surface and to depict the real person, 
and in his marvelous range of observation, from which nothing great or trivial 
escaped, Thackeray proved his genius for all time. 

Virgil's Aeneid. — This is the " golden branch on the ilex tree of Latin litera- 
ture." It is a wonderful poem written in 12 parts : The first 6 in imitation 
of the Odyssey ; the last 6 of the Iliad. " The Trojan hero is led to Italy, 
where he is to be the father of a race and of an empire supreme among nations. 
* * * Arrived in Italy he seeks the underworld, under the protection of 
the Sibyl of Cumae. He emerges thence to overcome his enemies." The Aeneid 
was not perfected at the time of Virgil's death, and his friends Varius and 
Tucca edited it at the request of the Emperor Augustus. It has since become 
the heritage of the world. 



NATIOlSrAL KUEAL TEACHERS ' READING CIRCLE. 9 

Van Dyke's The Blue Flower is a collection of nine stories, each differing 
from the "others in character and setting, and yet through all runs the quest 
of the Blue Flower — the Blue Flower symbolizing happiness. 

In " The Source " Ruamie finds happiness through unquestioning loyalty to 
the faith which all but she have forgotten. In " The Mill " Mortimor seeks 
the Blue Flower through chivalrous adventure, and finds it in faithful service. 
In " Spy Rock " Keene, spurning all that to the average man makes for happi- 
ness, seeks the Blue Flower in the rarified atmosphere of dreams. In " Wood 
Magic " Luke Dubois, spurred by ambition for material success, leaves his 
hut and his canoe in the north woods for the life of the town. He prospers 
mightily as Like Wood, but the soul of Luke Dubois flees back to hut and 
canoe. Artabas, " The Other Wise Man," hurrying in quest of his master — 
and happiness — is delayed through deeds of kindness to his fellow men, and 
after years of disappointment as he lies dying, thinking bitterly of his failure, 
finds that in each delaying deed he has clasped the Blue Flower. "A Handful 
of Clay " sadly bemoaning its uselessness and lack of beauty, finds the Blue 
Flower growing in the protection of its arms. In " The Lost Word " Hermas 
barters a word for what he believes to be the true happiness, only to find that 
in that word lies the happiness he sought. In " The First Christmas Tree " 
Winfried and Gregor, by a faith which leads them courageously through hard- 
ships and danger, find the Blue Flower blooming in the snowy forests of 
Eighth Century Germany. 
//. Educational Classics: 

Froebel's Education of Man. — In this classic Froebel gives the quintescence 
of modern educational practice. Here the teacher is led to realize that self- 
activity is the keynote in modern education ; that play is the most sacred right 
of childhood and must be given its place in the curriculum ; that knowledge 
must not be taught as a shapeless mass of facts, but must be vitalized through 
interrelations with the pupils' lives ; that effective instruction is not measured 
quantitatively by book knowledge, but by the students' ability to make their 
learning serve their needs. These are Froebel's vital contribution to educa- 
tional theory. 

Pestalozzi's Leonard and Oertrude. — This is the greatest of the Swiss edu- 
cator's writings. "It gives a homely and touching picture of life among the 
lowly and shows how a good woman uses her opportunities for uplifting and 
educating first her own family and then her neighbors. In this work she is 
aided by the village schoolmaster and the magistrate, who are inspired by her 
example and leadership. It gives a picture of the redemption of the village 
Bonal by helping the people to help themselves ; and Bonal is the world. 

Plato's Republic. — To a Greek mind above all others life was nothing with- 
out the social environment; and justice, the proper ruling of life, of all vir- 
tues, could least be realized apart from a community. Hence Plato deemed it 
wise to imagine a form of society in which the ideal man might find himself a 
home, a state to which the philosopher might stand in harmonious relationship — 
such was the Republic. It was indeed an attempt to anticipate the work of 
future generations. 

" Though it has something of the nature both of poetry and preaching, it is 
primarily a book of philosophy about the human life and the human soul, or 
human nature, and the real question in it is how to live best." 

Rousseau's Emile. — This is probably the most famous of pedagogical ro- 
mances. Its lasting effect was to lay the foundation of modern pedagogy. 
"From the hints contained in Emile, Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel drew 
their inspiration and laid the broad foundations of modern elementary educa- 



10 NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS READING CIRCLE. 

tion. Unsystematic, sometimes impractical, full of suggestion, it invests the 
revolutionary ideas of its author with his customary charm." 

Spencer's Essays on Education. — This is the first modern presentation of 
education — intellectual, moral, and physical — at least in the English tongue, 
based on the new scientific tendencies. The essays emphasize the new purpose, 
aim, and method of education. The purpose of education is defined as " prepa- 
ration for complete living " ; and this in turo is judged largely from the point 
of view of the welfare of the individual, though of the individual as living in 
fully developed society. 
III. General Principles and Methods of Education: 

Dewey's Moral Principles in Education. — A treatise on the moral aspects of 
education from several points of view. Comprises the following chapters : The 
moral purpose of the school, the moral training given by the school community, 
the moral training from methods of instruction, the social nature of the course 
of study, the psychological aspect of moral education. Designed for teachers' 
reading. 

Curtis's Education through Play. — This book is devoted to the problem of 
play as connected with the schools. It aims specifically to deal with the prob- 
lem as seen by the school board, the superintendent, and the individual teacher. 
To this end it seeks to show the best methods of laying out and equipping school 
grounds, gives rules for the games best suited to school yards, both during 
the summer time and the school year. Its fundamental assumption is that, 
as play is a necessity to wholesome childhood, the opportunity for ti should be 
offered to every child, and that more and more the conduct of play is to become 
one of the regular activities in all schools. 

King's Education for Social Efficiency. — This book analyzes and illustrates 
the ideal of social efficiency in modern schools. The school is shown as a social 
institution, owing its existence to social needs, accomplishing through social 
forces its work of training pupils, directing all educational effort toward making 
pupils efficient members of society. 

The social center as an educational agency in the country is suggestively 
presented through an account of an actual social-center association and its work 
in village betterment in a small town in Iowa. The part of the home in train- 
ing socially efficient children is discussed in two chapters, one dealing with the 
character-forming value of the farm home, the other with the work of the 
parent-teacher associations. 

Thorndike's Principles of Teaching. — The purpose of the book is to make the 
study of teaching scientific and practical — scientific in the sense of dealing 
with real facts rather than attractive opinions, practical in the sense of giving 
knowledge and power that will improve the actual, every-day work of the 
teacher. 

How to utilize the inborn instincts, interests, and capacities of children ; how 
to come to the activities of the school with their experiences before and outside 
of school ; how to get and keep attention and interest ; how to allow for indi- 
vidual differences among pupils ; how to stimulate and direct thinking ; how to 
improve skill, taste, and character — these are some of the chief topics. 

White's School Management. — The author has here discussed school govern- 
ment and moral training from the standpoint of experience, observation, and 
study. Avoiding dogmatism, he has carefully stated the grounds of his views 
and suggestions, and has freely used the fundamental facts of mental and 
moral science. So practical are the applications of principles, and so apt are 
the concrete illustrations, that the book can not fail to be of special interest 
and profit to all teachers, whether experienced or inexperienced. It will be 



NATIO]SrAL RURAL TEACHERS READING CIRCLE. H 

particularly effective in overcoming those two most obstructive foes of progress 
in school training — artificiality in motive and mechanicalness in method. 
IT. Rural Education: 

Carney's Country Life and the Country School. — The discussion in the book 
views the rural school as an immediate agency for rural progress, and to this 
end seeks especially to stimulate and assist rural teachers to local leadership. 
It emphasizes the social-service responsibility of the school, and lays down a 
program of work, showing concretely how this responsibility may be discharged 
by the individual teacher. 

Cuhherley's Rural Life and Education. — In the first part of the book the 
rural-life problem is set forth in its historical development, and the origin and 
present status of the rural-school problem shown. The second part sets forth 
specifically the present rural-school problem, and points out the fundamental 
nature of the remedies which must be applied for its solution. 

Eggleston and Bruere's The Work of the Rural Schools. — This book deals 
with all essential subjects, buildings, grounds, sanitation, the centralization of 
schools, transportation, plans of instruction, agriculture, amusements, etc. 
It also considers the school, not as an isolated fact, but as a phase and an 
essential phase in the upbuilding of the rural community. The importance of 
the new rural school as an expression of a new movement in rural life is 
emphasized in its broader aspects. 

Foght's American Rural School. — The book aims at fundamental harmony by 
facing the rural school away from the artificial interests which have hampered 
its usefulness in the past. It strives to place the school where it inherently 
belongs — in the midst of natural interests where it can prepare the youth for 
wholesome, contented lives on the farm — the only normal American life of our 
day. The book discusses school organization, administration and supervision, 
school buildings and grounds, indoor furnishings and art, gardens, nature- 
study, agriculture, industrial clubs, rural libraries, physical education, con- 
solidation of schools, and other topics of vital interest. 

Hart's Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities. — This book 
is the work of a number of men and women of experience in the rural field. 
It sets forth the great main lines of community interest, activity, and resource. 
The book is intended especially to help rural and village teachers to become 
more completely a part of the actual life and hope and purpose of the com- 
munity. 

V. Rural-Life Problems: 

Bailey's Country-Life Movement defines the new interest in rural welfare and 
discusses some of the reasons and some of the results to be accomplished. It 
is a supplement to the report of the Commission on Country Life appointed by 
President Roosevelt, of which Mr. Bailey was chairman. The book distin- 
guishes between the country -life movement and the back-to-the-land movement ; 
outlines the interrelations of city and country ; suggests ways of developing 
community feeling without resorting to the dangers of the hamlet system or 
overemphasizing economic cooperation; points out some of the fallacies in the 
popular mind about the decline of agriculture and many other things of vital 
importance to modern rural life. 

Carver's Principles in Rural Economics treats a phase of agriculture which 
has as yet been little exploited in textbook literature. It differs from other 
books on agriculture mainly in its discussion of every problem from the stand- 
point of national economy rather than from the standpoint of the individual 
farmer. Instead of explaining to the latter how to grow crops and make his 



12 NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS ' READING CIRCLE. 

farm pay, the author takes up such questions as the place of agriculture in 
national prosperity ; the characteristics of rural life ; the significance of rural aS 
distinguished from urban civilization. 

What is good agriculture — in its national significance; why rural migrations 
are from densely to sparsely populated areas, while urban migrations are in the 
opposite direction; why agriculture is necessarily an industry of small units; 
why rural people are more generally self-employed than urban people ; why they 
are harder to organize and upon what principles rural organization can succeed ; 
why and under what conditions agricultural cooperation is desirable and pos- 
sible — these and a number of other questions of tremendous practical importance 
in rural life are carefully worked out in the text, the emphasis always being 
upon the social rather than upon the business phase. 

Foffht's Rural Denmark and Its Scliools. — The book tells the story of the most 
scientific of agricultural nations — a nation which has become what it is through 
a most remarkable system of rural schools. Part I deals graphically with the 
recent agricultural rehabilitation, including the struggle to build up the land, 
cooperation in the agricultural system, and the social life of the people. Part II 
outlines the work of the elementary rural schools, the rural agricultural schools, 
and the remarkable folk high schools. There is also a section on the rural-life 
movement in the United States. Finally the book contains suggestions for 
modifying our American system of rural schools to answer modern rural 
conditions. 

Gillette's Constructive Rural Sociology. — The book seeks to view rural life 
as a community life, to portray its fundamental conditions, to detect its 
deficiencies, and to suggest directions of improvement. It aims to deal with 
the situation in a concrete, practical manner rather than abstractly and 
theoretically. 

Wilson's Evolution of the Country Community. — This book treats the country 
neighborhood as a social unit and describes its history in American life from 
pioneer times to the present, with the changes wrought by economic forces. 
The school and the church, the grange and other community institutions are 
used as registers of the social changes effected. The experience of people in 
getting a living is exhibited as the force effecting the changes. 

Among the chapters treated in the book are " The Pioneer," " The Land 
Farmer," " The Exploiter," " The Husbandman," " The Margin of the Com- 
munity," " Common Schools," " Rural Morality." 

The book condenses the philosophy on which Sir Horace Plunkett and L. H. 
Bailey and the National Country Life Commission acted in initiating the 
modern agrarian movement. 

The purpose of the book is to show the need of a new type of rural institu- 
tion adapted to the irresistible changes which are molding and reforming 
country life. The unit of social action in the country, which was in the land- 
farmer days the household, has become in modern times the community or 
neighborhood. The effect of this book upon the reader has been to plant in the 
mind faith in the future of rural society. 

Correspondence. — For further information address 

The Commissioner of Education, 

Department or the Interior, 

Washington, D. O. 



WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1916 



REGISTRATION BLANK. 

NATIONAL RURAL TEACHERS' READING CIRCLE. 



The Commissioner of Education, 

Department of the Interior, Washington^ D. C. 

Sir : I hereby request to be registered as a member of the National 
Eural Teachers' Reading Circle as outlined for the years 1915-1917. 
I pledge myself to do all the reading required of me faithfully and 
conscientiously, and to report progress of the work from time to 
time to the local educational authority, as indicated by the State 
Department of Education in my State. 

Name 

Address, P. O , R. F. D. No 

County , State 

Educational position 

(Fill out and return this blank to the Division of Rural School Practice, Bureau of 
Education, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C.) 



